


Chatterbox

by Urloth (CollyWobbleKiwi)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, AU up the wazoo, F/F, Idril is tsundere I'm sure, alternative universe, awkward teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:58:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollyWobbleKiwi/pseuds/Urloth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Idril and her annoying cousin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chatterbox

**Author's Note:**

> A vague AU from my headcanons I’ve wanted to do was if what if Curufin’s stillborn daughter had survived? For details see this fic and this headcanon
> 
> It turned into awkward teenage Idril and Tatyamíriel . And Tatyamíriel’s not very subtle crush on Idril.
> 
> Written last week for Femslash Friday. Posting late because I am a derp.

Tatyamíriel is chattering in her ear. Itarillë is tuning her out with ease, sulking at the fact she is stuck with her distant cousin once more.

Tatyamíriel’s perfume is too spicy for a girl too young, or that’s what Itarillë’s father would say.

Itarillë likes it, but it’s making her hungry, thinking of spice stewed fruits, carefully drip dried so none of the too-sticky syrup remains and they are just the right type of tart…

Damn she’s hungry!

She doesn’t glare at Tatyamíriel, but she does shuffle her feet so her cousin is awkwardly pressed against the pillar they’re standing beside.

It’s not that she doesn’t like her…it’s that she doesn’t want to like her.

She’s Fëanáro’s granddaughter; the man her father can work himself up into a frothing rage over, and worst she’s also Curufinwë’s daughter, whom her father hates the most of his uncle’s. She knows it’s a little unfair, but Tatyamíriel’s grandfather and father bring unpleasantness into Itarillë’s house, so she doesn’t really want to associate with her.

Her father always  _questions_ her about it when she is seen with Tatyamíriel. Which is all the time at functions like this when there is a likely chance of Finwë being in attendance.

Unfortunately all Tatyamíriel wants to do when she sees Itarillë is talk to her.

Right now she’s talking about something to do with the quality of coal in the steel process and Itarillë’s eyes are trying not to roll back in her skull.

A small part of her is writhing with jealousy. The extent of her more dangerous handcrafts are paper mosaics she cuts out with a particularly sharp pair of shears and a small razor knife she doesn’t let her father know about.

Itarillë spares a glance up at her.

Tatyamíriel is too tall, her smile is too wide for a member of the House of Finwë. It can only be described as ‘jolly’.

Itarillë likes her when she smiles, but when it is not during functions where ‘jolly’ smiles have no place.

Tatyamíriel is already curving in the right places, her skin is fair but has a smattering of freckles across it.

She remains the only female relative Itarillë has apart from her mother, that has an embrace that feels welcoming and genuine in its affection.

Tatyamíriel’s hair is silver.

There is some romantic rot about the court of Itarillë and Tatyamíriel being the reflections of their respective Royal Great Grandmothers. This despite how Itarillë couldn’t look further from Indis if she tried, and the only thing Tatyamíriel inherited from Míriel apart from her hair is the ability to talk a mile a minute and still have every word enunciated.

Yes that hair.

Tatyamíriel’s hair is not the bright metal colour of the Teleri family.

It is Noldor Silver.

Proper Noldor Silver.

It’s more of a creamy colour actually, with small strands that shimmer a soft quick starlight gleam in the right light. Itarillë’s not even sure why the colour is called Noldor Silver. Noldor white or Noldor cream would be better. And the filaments of shimmering light put Itarillë in mind of the fish that sometimes are fished up from the deep nets, horrific, monstrous creatures with long thin threads hanging from them to glow in the dark depths and lure prey to them.

Pleased at this analogy, Itarillë smiles to herself.

It helps ease the sting of their Great Grandfather’s gaze always lighting up when he sees Tatyamíriel in a way it does not for Itarillë.

Something else her father froths over when given the time.

Her mother has, over the years, developed a host of tactics to distract Turukáno from his ‘moods’ as she calls them.

Itarillë glances up at Tatyamíriel’s hair where it has been braided and braided and braided again into some complicated but highly elegant garland that emphasises the length of Tatyamíriel’s neck without making her seem any more unwomanly tall than she is.

Tyelperinquar apparently is responsible, which only makes the injustice of Itarillë’s single child status more apparent.

“And then of course we tried some sulfa-”

Tatyamíriel squeezes her arm where she has her own lopped around it, bouncing very gently on her feet.

It’s a warm reassuring gesture of friendship that doesn’t actually exist between them.

Tatyamíriel and she, Itarillë thinks, could have been friends in another type of life.

One where Tatyamíriel is not obsessed with smelly compounds, metals melting just right, molten glass being blown into strange shapes, and the perfect angle to cut a diamond at.

And one where they are not related.

Or at least not related via this giant clustrefuck of issues that is the Royal House of Finwë.

“Do you think?”

Itarillë snaps out of her thoughts and peers at Tatyamíriel who is smiling at her so tentatively and awkwardly it’s actually worse than the ‘jolly’ smile.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t catch that last part,” Itarillë feels a flush climb up her neck at the pathetic excuse.

“Oh! I said that if I perhaps return from Formenos early this summer season, we might go to Alqualondë together for a week?”

“Ah-”

“You were talking about that spa you wanted to visit.”

Oh yes she had been hadn’t she? But her mother was not one for spas, none of her other relatives seemed interested, and there was no way Itarillë’s father would let her go by herself.

Not at her age.

Or any age.

“I…would like that,” she says.

She’s put up with Tatyamíriel for longer occasions after all.

Those two months in Valmar for instance.

“Oh really?” Itarillë tries not to feel uncomfortable at how Tatyamíriel’s eyes light up. It is hard not to.

It’s a sort of…stomach twisting, oh-no-what-have-I-done, anticipatory discomfort.

“Then I definitely will talk to father and get permission! You see even though I love Formenos, Mother comes from there you know, I get tired of her family always asking me when I’m going to marry. And when I’m going to start popping out children, and it just gets so heavy and I want to smile and be happy like I was when I first arrived in Formenos but by the end of the summer I always feel so heavy and sour. Going somewhere utterly new and being pampered for a week would clear it away. I know it’s stupid reason to want to go to a spa…” Tatyamíriel’s voice comes out in a hushed rush, and her arm around Itarillë’s tightens.

“I understand,” Itarillë soothes and she does, actually, which is more than she can say for most of what comes out of Tatyamíriel’s mouth.

“Oh good!” Tatyamíriel smiles, and it is a smile of unexpected sweetness. She darts forwards and presses a kiss to Itarillë’s cheek, enveloping her in that cloud of too-spicy perfume, a kiss that lands far too close to the corner of Itarillë’s mouth; lips whispering against it when she pulls back.

“Tatië!” Tyelperinquar waves his sister over, and she leaves Itarillë to stand stunned in the corner. 


End file.
